U.S. patent application number 09/917293 was filed with the patent office on 2002-07-04 for autonomous behavior decision control system for an electronic device.
Invention is credited to Yoshida, Makoto.
Application Number | 20020087498 09/917293 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 18719929 |
Filed Date | 2002-07-04 |
United States Patent
Application |
20020087498 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Yoshida, Makoto |
July 4, 2002 |
Autonomous behavior decision control system for an electronic
device
Abstract
An electronic device, such as a pet robot, having an autonomic
function that facilitates the development of certain personalities
based on user inputs is described. Controls allow the user to
specify an initial personality or to re-initialize the pet robot
with a new personality. The selected personality is used as a
starting point, and the personality of the pet robot develops and
changes automatically after that until such time as the user
decides to re-initialize the personality or select a new
personality for the pet robot. In one embodiment the user selects a
single personality for the pet robot. In one embodiment the user
selects a plurality of personalities for the pet robot and an
initialization module builds a composite personality by combining
the plural personalities into a single composite personality.
Inventors: |
Yoshida, Makoto; (Iwata,
JP) |
Correspondence
Address: |
KNOBBE MARTENS OLSON & BEAR LLP
620 NEWPORT CENTER DRIVE
SIXTEENTH FLOOR
NEWPORT BEACH
CA
92660
US
|
Family ID: |
18719929 |
Appl. No.: |
09/917293 |
Filed: |
July 27, 2001 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
706/45 ;
706/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06N 3/008 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
706/45 ;
706/1 |
International
Class: |
G06F 017/00 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Jul 27, 2000 |
JP |
2000-226287 |
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. An electronic device having an autonomic self-regulatory
function in which personalities are modified depending on external
factors, comprising: a personality information database for storing
information relating to plural personalities, a manual personality
selecting module for allowing a user to choose a desired
personality from said database as a selected personality, said
manual personality selecting module configured to set said selected
personality as an initial personality.
2. The electronic device in claim 1, wherein said manual
personality selecting module is adapted to allow the user to select
a plurality of personalities from said personality information
database, and said manual personality selecting module configured
to set said initial personality based on said plurality of
personalities.
3. The electronic device in claim 1, wherein said manual
personality selecting module is adapted to partially or entirely
rewrite said personality database.
4. The electronic device in claim 1, further comprising a
connection terminal connectable to a computer network to allow the
user to partially or entirely rewrite said personality information
database using new personality information obtained from said
computer network.
5. The electronic device in claim 1, wherein a personality of said
electronic device is initially based on said initial personality,
said electronic device further comprising an automatic personality
setting module configured to update said personality of said
electronic device in response to external inputs such that over
time said personality of said electronic device diverges from said
initial personality.
6. The electronic device in claim 1, wherein said personality
database comprises weighting factors for various emotions exhibited
by the electronic device.
7. The electronic device in claim 1, wherein said initial
personality comprises a set of initial weights for one or more
emotions exhibited by the electronic device.
8. The electronic device in claim 1, further comprising a modem to
allow said electronic device to download new personality
information to said personality database from a computer
network.
9. The electronic device in claim 1, further comprising a computer
network interface to allow said electronic device to download new
personality information to said personality database from a
computer network.
10. The electronic device in claim 1, further comprising a data
interface to allow said electronic device to download new
personality information to said personality database from an
external device.
11. The electronic device in claim 1, wherein a personality of said
electronic device is initially based on one or more emotion weights
specified by said initial personality, said electronic device
further comprising an automatic personality setting module
configured to update said one or more emotion weights in response
to external inputs such that over time said personality of said
electronic device diverges from said initial personality.
12. An apparatus, comprising: a personality information database
for storing information relating to plural personalities; means for
choosing a desired personality from said database as a selected
personality; and means for setting said selected personality as an
initial personality.
13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein said means for choosing is
adapted to allow a user to select a plurality of personalities from
said personality information database, and said means for setting
sets said initial personality based on a combination of said
plurality of personalities.
14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein said means for choosing is
further adapted to partially or entirely rewrite said personality
database.
15. The apparatus of claim 12, further comprising means for
connecting to a computer network to allow the user to partially or
entirely rewrite said personality information database using new
personality information obtained from said computer network.
16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein a personality of said
electronic device is initially based on said initial personality,
said electronic device further comprising means for automatically
updating said personality such that over time said personality of
said electronic device diverges from said initial personality.
17. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein said personality database
comprises weighting factors for various emotions exhibited by the
electronic device.
18. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein said initial personality
comprises a set of initial weight coefficients for one or more
emotions exhibited by the electronic device.
19. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a personality of said
electronic device is initially based on one or more emotion
weighting coefficients specified by said initial personality, said
electronic device further comprising an automatic personality
setting module configured to update said one or more emotion
weighting coefficients in response to external inputs such that
over time said personality of said electronic device diverges from
said initial personality.
20. A method for training an electronic device having an autonomic
self-regulatory function in which personalities are modified
depending on external factors, comprising: using user inputs to
select an initial personality from a personality information
database; initializing a personality of said electronic device
using said initial personality; and updating said personality of
said electronic device in response to external training inputs such
that over time said personality of said electronic device diverges
from said initial personality.
21. A method for training an electronic device having an autonomic
self-regulatory function in which personalities are modified
depending on external factors, comprising: using user inputs to
select one or more initial emotion weights from a personality
information database; initializing a personality of said electronic
device using said one or more initial emotion weights to initialize
personality emotion weights; and updating said personality emotion
weights in response to external training inputs such that over time
said personality emotion weights diverge from said initial emotion
weights.
22. The method of claim 21, further comprising downloading at least
a portion of said personality information database from a computer
network.
23. The method of claim 21, further comprising downloading at least
a portion of said personality information database from an external
device.
Description
REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] The present application claims foreign priority benefit of
Japanese Application No. P17022, filed Jul. 27, 2000, the contents
of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] 1. Field of the Invention
[0003] The present invention relates to an electronic device having
autonomic (self-regulatory) emotion and personality functions in
which personalities can be modified depending on external factors
such as initial conditions and how a user interacts with the
electronic device.
[0004] 2. Description of the Related Art
[0005] A conventional pet robot is a system in which information,
such as surrounding situations or movements of a pet owner (a user
of the pet robot), is acquired with an electronic camera or a
microphone. Information about the owner is extracted from the
acquired information by using image recognition and/or voice
recognition. Emotions are produced based on the extracted
information, and actions are determined based on the emotions.
[0006] For example, the pet robot signals hunger and fatigue to the
user by displaying various actions to demand pet food or the like.
Over time, the pet robot develops a personality based on the user's
reactions and how the owner responds to the pet robot.
[0007] At a time of purchase, the pet robot is not provided with a
specific personality. Thus, the user can enjoy the process of
personality-development in the pet robot. However, some users are
impatient, and become bored with the pet robot while waiting for
the pet robot to develop the personality desired by the user.
[0008] This problem is not only necessarily limited to pet robots
and can apply to electronic devices that facilitate the development
of certain characters/personalities of other electronic pet-type
simulators.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0009] The present invention solves these and other problems by
providing an electronic device, such as a pet robot, having an
autonomic function that facilitates the development of certain
personalities based on user inputs that allow the user to specify
an initial personality (or to re-initialize the pet robot with a
new personality). The selected personality is a starting point and
the personality of the pet robot develops and changes automatically
after that until such time as the user decides to re-initialize the
personality or select a new personality for the pet robot.
[0010] The user can set up the pet robot with personalities of the
user's own preference. Since the user can select a personality,
rather than wait for a personality to develop, the user is less
likely to get bored with the pet robot. In one embodiment, the user
selects a personality from a list of personalities. In one
embodiment, the user selects a plurality of personalities from a
list of personalities and an initialization module builds a
composite personality from the plurality of personalities. Thus,
with a combination of plural personalities, the user can obtain a
wider selection to satisfy the user's specific preferences.
[0011] Once the personality has been initialized, the personality
of the pet robot continues to develop from the starting personality
provided during initialization. Stored plural personality
information in the pet robot can be rewritten partially or
entirely. Thus, the user has much control over the process of
selecting personalities for the robot.
[0012] In one embodiment, the user can connect the pet robot to a
computer network to rewrite the currently stored personality
information. Thereafter, the user can easily change the personality
at any time. In one embodiment, the user can connect the pet robot
to the Internet to download personalities from a server. In one
embodiment, the pet robot includes an internal modem for making an
Internet connection through a telephone line. In one embodiment,
the pet robot includes a connector for connecting to an external
modem.
[0013] The user can develop initial personalities of the user's own
preference on pets so that the user is able to play with the pet
robot having a desired personality without waiting for a desired
personality to develop.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0014] These and other features of the invention will now be
described with reference to the drawings summarized below. These
drawings and the associated description are provided to illustrate
preferred embodiments of the invention, and not to limit the scope
of the invention.
[0015] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the structure of a pet
robot or other electronic device.
[0016] FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing processing of information
in the pet robot or other electronic device.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0017] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the structure of a pet
robot 1. The pet robot 1 includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU)
2, a main memory 3 for storing programs such as an operating system
and other information, an interface circuit 7 for input devices
such as an electronic camera 4, a microphone 5, and a
personality-setting module 6. In one embodiment, the
personality-setting module 6 includes user-operable
personality-setting controls. In one embodiment, the
personality-setting module 6 includes a computer network interface,
such as, for example, a modem, an ethernet port, a Universal Serial
Bus (USB) port, a radio-frequency link (e.g., a Bluetooth link),
etc. The personality-setting module 6 allow the user to set up or
select personalities for the pet robot 1. The pet robot 1 also
includes an interface circuit 19 for output devices such as a motor
system 8 and a speaker 9. The pet robot 1 also includes a system
bus 11 for connecting the CPU 2, the main memory 3 and the
interface circuits 7 and 10.
[0018] The personality-setting module 6 can be equipped with
switches corresponding to personalities that can be adopted by the
pet robot 1. Further, The personality-setting module 6 can be
equipped with a connection terminal (e.g. a data bus connection) to
allow connection of the pet robot 1 to an external device for
setting up the personalities of the pet robot 1. In one embodiment,
the personality-setting controls are omitted and the user uses the
connection terminal and an external device to configure the
personality of the pet robot 1. If only the connection terminal is
chosen, the pet robot 1 only need be connected to the external
device when the user determines the personality of the pet robot 1,
thus reducing the size of the pet robot 1. In one embodiment, the
external device is a computer modem. In one embodiment, the
external device is a computer or computer network. In one
embodiment, the external device is a custom device configured to
program personalities into the pet robot 1.
[0019] The user of the pet robot 1 activates a pet robot control
program stored in the pet robot 1. The pet robot control program is
executed by the CPU 2.
[0020] FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a pet robot control program
200, the pet robot control program 200 includes an object-detection
module 201 for detecting user's actions and the surrounding
environment. Data from external sensors, such as the electronic
camera 4 and the microphone 5 are provided to the
detection-processing module. The detection-processing module 201
provides detection data to an emotion-producing module 202 for
producing emotions based at least in part on the detection data.
The detection-processing module also provides detection data to an
expression processing module 203 that selects what kind of action
is needed and produces one or more control signals based on the
detection data and on emotion data produced by the
emotion-producing module 202. The control signals are provided to
control the motor system 8 and the speaker 9. The detection data
and the emotion data are also provided to an automatic
personality-modification module 204, which produces character
change data that is provided to the emotion-producing module 202.
Data from the user personality-setting module 6 is provided to a
manual personality modification module 205 for modifying the
equations used for producing emotions in the emotion-producing
module 202 (based on inputs from the personality-setting module
6).
[0021] The object-detection module 201 is arranged to detect
various types of information such as the user's actions and/or
voice when the user is interacting with the pet robot 1. The
object-detection module detects surrounding objects and
temperatures based on data provided by the electronic camera 4,
microphone 5, and other sensors, such as, for example, a
temperature sensor.
[0022] The emotion-producing module 202 is configured to produce
emotions for the pet robot 1 based on detection results from the
object-detection module 201 with an equation that computes
parameters expressing emotions. The emotions of the pet robot 1
includes for example "anger" "sadness," "pleasure," "fear,"
"surprise" and "hatred". These emotions are displayed according the
strength of each emotion, as represented by parameters computed in
the emotion module 202.
[0023] The expression module 203 is arranged to select actions by
referring to a parameter showing an emotion computed by the
emotion-producing module 202 and to produce a control signal in
order to perform such action selected by the detection result of
the object-detection module 201. The control signal is provided to
output devices such as the motor system 8 to produce movements
(corresponding to front paws, hind legs, torso, head, etc.) and the
speaker 9 to produce sounds (e.g., barks, growls, etc.) The pet
robot 1 can produce expressions such as "bite," "bark," "run,"
"cry," "lie down" etc. These actions are regulated by lower limit
and upper limit values of parameters reflecting the strength of
each emotion. For example, a "biting" action is selected when a
parameter indicating "anger" is in the range 90-100 and a parameter
indicating "sadness" is in the range 0-20.
[0024] The automatic personality-modification module 204 is
arranged to read emotion weighting values, and modify those
weighting values based on inputs from the object-detection module
201 and inputs from the emotion-producing module 202. The emotion
weighting values (also known as weights, or weighting coefficients)
are used by equations in the emotion-producing module 202 to
compute the emotion parameters of the pet robot 1. Thus, modifying
the emotion weighting values changes the emotions produced (and
thus the personality) of the pet robot 1. For example, when a
parameter showing "anger" is always great because of constant
scolding by the owner, the weighting value corresponding to anger
is increased. This changes the equations producing emotions so that
a computing result of the parameter showing "anger" is multiplied
by larger weighting factor, whereupon the personality of the pet
robot 1 becomes "short-tempered". On the other hand, when the
parameter showing "anger" is always small because of constant
praise by the owner, the weighting factor for anger is decreased,
whereupon the personality of the pet robot 1 becomes "mild".
[0025] The manual personality modification module 205 reads out an
emotion weighting factor from a database based on a setting or
selection by the user on the personality-setting module 6. This
modifies the emotion-producing equations so that the user can
control the personality of the pet robot 1. For example, when a
"short-tempered personality" is selected in the personality-setting
module 6, an equation for producing emotions is modified so that
the weighting factor for "anger" is increased. Since the weighting
factor is increased, the personality of the pet robot 1 becomes
"short-tempered". On the other hand, when a "mild personality" is
selected in the personality-setting module 6, the equation for
producing emotions is modified so that the computing weighting
factor for expressing "anger" is decreased. Since the parameter
becomes smaller, the personality of the pet robot 1 displays a
"mild personality".
[0026] With the manual personality modification module 205, since
the user is able to set up a preferable personality at time of
purchase, the user can start playing with the pet robot 1 having
personality of his/her own preference. Thus the user is less likely
to become bored and impatient during the pet robot's
personality-development period.
[0027] Furthermore, when multiple personalities are set up
simultaneously in the personality-setting module 6, predetermined
values corresponding to each selected personality are read out
respectively from the main memory 2. Then, the equation for
producing emotions is modified so that the computing result of the
weighting factors showing emotions are multiplied by said
predetermined values individually, whereby the pet robot 1 has
combined multiple personalities. With this arrangement, the
personalities of the pet robot 1 are combined to meet user's
specific preference.
[0028] In one embodiment, the main memory 2 stores the personality
information data, the personality-setting module 6 is used to
select personality information, and the manual
personality-modification module 205 updates the personality
information data based on inputs from the user. One of ordinary
skill in the art will recognize that other techniques, such as
connecting the pet robot 1 to a computer or other external device
can be used to set up personalities.
[0029] Moreover, although described in terms of a pet robot, the
personality-setting features disclosed herein are not limited to a
pet robot. The personality-setting features can be also applied to
other electronic pet-type devices such as upbringing or parenting
simulation game machines.
[0030] Furthermore, the main memory 2 can be rewritten partially or
entirely in order to change predetermined values corresponding to
each personality. For example, the electronic device can be
equipped with a connection terminal to a computer network (e.g. a
telecommunication line, an Internet connection, an ethernet
connection, a computer connection, etc.) to which a server for
storing plural personality information is connected. When the
computer network is connected to the connection terminal, the
plural personality information currently stored in the main memory
2 can be partially or entirely rewritten by referring to
personality information stored in the server and copying the
information from the server to the pet robot 1.
[0031] Although described above in connection with the particular
embodiments of the present invention, it should be understood that
the descriptions of the embodiments are illustrative of the
invention and are not intended to be limiting. Various
modifications and applications can occur to those skilled in the
art without departing from the true spirit and scope of the
invention as defined in the appended claims.
* * * * *